People Australia

George Warner Whitbread (1886-1958) printer, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 10 August 1886 at Wallaroo, South Australia, son of Charles Whitbread (1854-1934), business proprietor, and Ellen, née Smith (1863-1950). Marriage: 1910 in Methodist church at Wallaroo Mines, SA, to Clara Louisa Jolly (1887-1974). They had four children. Death: 7 October 1958 in his residence at Bronte Street, East Perth, Western Australia. 

• Spent eight years learning the hand composing trade in South Australia.
• Arrived in Western Australia about 1912. Was a linotype operator with the West Australian in 1924, and he was father of its chapel.
• President of WA branch of the Printing Industry Employees’ Union from the 1920s. Leader of printers’ strike in 1927. He resigned in 1931.
• Founding member of Communist Party in WA. Frequent speaker at the Esplanade on behalf of Social Democratic League etc.
• Co-author with James Arthur Lake of ‘Labor Vigilance’, an anti-Australian Labor Party and probably Communist-inspired paper published 1927-28.
• Elected to the executive of the WA National Football League in March 1936.
• Cause of death: coronary occlusion.